1. “CATCHING AS THE SMALLPOX”
SOCIAL DANCE AND JAZZ
1917–1935

2. 1917–1935 World War I: “The war to end all wars”
Migration: Country to city, South to North
Unified National popular culture—movies, telephones, phonographs, radio
Prohibition: 18th amendment to Constitution prohibited sale and transport of alcohol
Ku Klux Klan
The Great Depression

3. 1917–1935 Incredible profits in the music business
Organizations were set up to control the flow of profits from mass-reproduced music.
Radio networks broadcast the latest songs and artists coast to coast.
Vaudeville entertainment went into a gradual decline—replaced by Broadway musicals.

4. Hollywood
Films with synchronized sound—the “talkies”—became an important medium for promoting songs and “star” entertainers.
Los Angeles began to compete with New York City as a center of the national entertainment industry.

5. Technology and the Music Business
The record industry expanded rapidly after World War I.
The music industry increasingly relied on phonograph records, rather than sheet music, as the main means of promoting songs and artists.
The introduction of radio and the Great Depression caused a precipitous decline in the record industry.

6. Technology and the Music Business
Acoustic recording
Early process for recording sound vibrations
Electric recording
Introduced in 1925; sound is converted to an electric signal
Radio
Commercial stations introduced in 1920
Sound film
Introduced in 1927
Became an important means for the dissemination of popular music

7. Licensing and Copyright Agencies
Set up to control the flow of profits from the sale and broadcast of popular music
ASCAP (the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers)
Founded in 1914
Forced all business establishments that featured live music to pay fees (“royalties”) for the public use of music

8. “Freak Dances”: Turkey Trot and Tango
At the beginning of the twentieth century, several changes took place in American social dancing.
Most important was the intensified influence of African American dance.
Dance fads loosely based on black styles included the turkey trot, the bunny hug, the grizzly bear, and the most popular, the fox-trot.
The turkey trot was banned in some places because it was seen as a threat to public morality.

9. Vernon and Irene Castle
The biggest media superstars of the World War I era
Husband-and-wife dance team who did more than anyone to change the course of social dancing in America
Attracted millions of middle-class Americans into ballroom classes

10. Vernon and Irene Castle
Established an image of mastery, charisma, and romance
Made syncopated dance acceptable to the mainstream
Created a simple way to learn dances such as the fox-trot and the tango
Fox-trot
Created by Vernon and Irene Castle
Danced to W. C. Handy’s music
Tango
Developed in the late nineteenth century in Buenos Aires, Argentina
Blended European ballroom dance music, Cuban habanera, Italian light opera, and the ballads of Argentine gauchos (cowboys)

11. James Reese Europe (1880–1919)
African American musician and bandleader
Born into a middle-class family in Mobile, Alabama
In 1889, moved with his family to Washington, D.C.
Studied violin and music theory from the assistant director to the U.S. Marine Corps Band

12. James Reese Europe (1880–1919) Moved to New York City at the age of 22
Found few opportunities for black musicians
Played ragtime piano in cabarets
Directed the music for several all-black vaudeville revues
In 1910, founded the Clef Club
A social club, booking agency, and trade union for African American musicians in New York City
In 1913, the Castles attended a society party in New York City where they danced to Europe’s Clef Club Orchestra.
Afterward, the Castles made James Reese Europe their musical director.
From 1913 to 1918, Europe composed music for all of the Castles’ “new” dance steps and provided musicians for their engagements.

13. Europe’s Society Orchestra
In 1913, Europe’s Society Orchestra became the first black group to sign a contract with a record company.
Europe’s band was noted for its superior ability to perform syncopated ragtime and tango arrangements.

14. The Hell Fighters Band
In 1916, Europe enlisted in the 15th Infantry Regiment of the New York National Guard.
He was soon asked by the commander to form a military band.
His troop was forbidden to fight alongside white soldiers in World War I, so the outfit was transferred to the French Army.
Europe’s company was known as the “Hell Fighters.”
Played several concerts in Paris
Had a successful concert tour
Made recordings for Pathe, a French company with a studio in New York
In May 1919, Europe was fatally stabbed by one of his musicians.

15. Listening: “Castle House Rag”
Performed by James Reese Europe’s Society Orchestra (1914)
Documents the transition between ragtime and syncopated dance music
Faster tempo than traditional ragtime
Instrumentation—popular dance orchestra
Form—multisectional
Syncopation

16. “CATCHING AS THE SMALLPOX”
The Jazz Craze
1917–1935

17. The Jazz Craze
Until World War I, the major influence on syncopated dance music was ragtime.
The next stage in the African Americanization of ballroom dance was the so-called jazz craze.
Began during World War I and continued through the 1920s

18. New Orleans Jazz
The earliest style of Jazz originated in New Orleans around 1900.
New Orleans contained a unique mix of white, Creole, French, Spanish, and black communities.
This cultural mix helped form a hybrid musical culture unlike that in any other American City.
The term “jazz” carried multiple meanings in New Orleans
Strictly musical references (“speeding up” or “intensifying”)

19. New Orleans’s Diverse Musical Traditions
Marching bands
Mardi Gras and funerary processions
French and Italian opera
Caribbean and Mexican music—“the Latin tinge”
Tin Pan Alley songs
African American song traditions

20. Early Jazz Bands
Dance bands of the period typically included some combination of violin, guitar, mandolin, and string bass, and sometimes a wind instrument (clarinet or cornet).
“Hot” or “ratty” ragtime-based music was being performed in New Orleans by the 1890s, largely as an accompaniment for dancing.
This sort of music was played at dance halls or honky-tonks such as the Pig Ankle and the Funky Butt.
The rowdy contexts for social dancing encouraged the addition of instruments that could project over the noise of a boisterous crowd.

21. The Original Dixieland Jazz Band
Made the first recording with the name “jass” in New York
White group from New Orleans
The leader of the group, Nick LaRocca (1889– 1961), had started playing “hot music” with other white musicians as a teenager.

22. The Original Dixieland Jazz Band
Spent two years in Chicago before coming to New York City
Landed a recording contract with Victor Records.
“Livery Stable Blues” and “Dixieland Jass Band One-step” released in 1917
Within weeks created a national fad for jazz music

23. The Original Dixieland Jazz Band
Their biggest hit was their 1918 recording of “Tiger Rag,” composed by LaRocca.

24. Listening: “Tiger Rag”
Recorded by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in 1918.
Front line—three wind instruments: cornet, clarinet, and trombone
Cornet typically carries main melody
Clarinet weaves a countermelody in and around cornet’s
Trombone plays a simple countermelody or bass notes of chord
Often, trombone slides or smears from one note to the next
Rhythm section—piano and trap set
Collective improvisation
One of the most significant musical elements of New Orleans– style jazz

25. Listening: “Tiger Rag”
Consists of a series of musical phrases of regular length, presented one after the other
Contains no strongly identified melody
Sense of novelty in musical tricks
“Stoptime”
Instrumental techniques (the glides and slides played by the trombone and clarinet)
The energy level remains high throughout the performance, peaking at the “shout chorus.”

26. “King” Joe Oliver and the Creole Jazz Band
The first representative recordings of New Orleans–style jazz was made by “King” Joe Oliver and his Creole Jazz Band.
More relaxed and flowing rhythmic feeling
Syncopations smoother and less jerky
Improvisation plays a prominent role
ODJB’s recordings are rooted in the past—a tradition of semi-improvised ragtime ensemble playing
The Creole Jazz Band’s recordings, featuring the brilliant young cornet player Louis Armstrong, point toward the future of jazz.

27. Dance Music in the “Jazz Age”
An era in American popular culture sparked by the success of the recordings of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band
A new subculture emerged from the white upper and middle classes
The “jazz babies” or “flappers”
The “jazzbos” or “sheiks”
This movement involved a blend of elements from “high culture” and from popular culture
The jazz craze represented the intensification of African American influence on the musical tastes and buying habits of white Americans.

28. Noble Sissle (1899–1975) and Eubie Blake (1883–1983)
Began their career with James Reese Europe’s orchestra in 1916
In 1921, Sissle and Blake launched the first successful all-black Broadway musical, Shuffle Along.
This show included jazz-influenced songs such as “I’m Just Wild about Harry.”
Portrayed romantic relationships between black characters without resorting to degrading stereotypes

29. Racism in the Jazz Age
The world of dance orchestras remained strictly segregated.
The most successful black dance bands of the 1920s were able to extend their appeal across racial boundaries.
During the late 1920s, white jazz fans began to frequent nightclubs in African American neighborhoods.
At Harlem’s famous Cotton Club, the great jazz pianist and composer Duke Ellington developed a style that he called “jungle music,” featuring dense textures and dark, growling timbres.
Most economically successful dance bands of the 1920s and 1930s were led and staffed by white musicians.

30. Dance Music in the Jazz Age
Dance bands during the 1920s and 1930s tended to specialize in one of three styles:
“Hot”
Specialized in syncopated jazz arrangements
Popular at college dances
“Sweet”
Romantic and nostalgic music
Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians
“Latin”
Music to accompany ballroom adaptations of South American and Caribbean dances
Reignited national fascination with Latin American music and ballroom dance steps

31. Don Azpiazu and his Havana Casino Orchestra (1930)
Recording opens with the clave rhythm
Complex ensemble texture with interlocking parts
Solo trumpet and solo voice

32. Paul Whiteman (1890–1967) “The King of Jazz”
Born in Denver, Colorado
Began studying music at the age of seven and joined the Denver Symphony Orchestra as a violist at seventeen
Initially encountered syncopated dance music in San Francisco before World War I
Soon thereafter, formed a seven-piece dance band, which played around San Francisco until 1916, when he enlisted in the navy
Had incredible commercial success
Widened the market for jazz-based dance music-and paved the way for the Swing Era
Hired brilliant young jazz musicians and arrangers

33. Listening: “Whispering”
Recorded at the Victor studios after he had begun a long engagement at the Ambassador Hotel
The first of Whiteman’s amazing string of hit records; contained the musical seeds of Whiteman’s future successes
Played at a medium tempo
A straightforward, bouncy fox-trot rhythm
Appropriate for ballroom dancing in the style popularized by Irene and Vernon Castle

34. Whiteman’s Symphonic Jazz
A mixture of syncopation and careful arrangement, rhythmic pep and gentility
The 1924 debut of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue Featured Whiteman’s band
Whiteman widened the market for jazz-based dance music and paved the way for the Swing Era.